I'm not sure why I didn't actually post it here, but we finally got Lich King 25-man down last week. We've been steamrolling IcC 25 now that we've actually started going into the place with 25 people, rather than with 23 with three additional players disconnecting/leaving early halfway through.

On heroic-25, we haven't made a lot of progress yet, though, obviously, we've got lootship. We had some not completely horrible tries on Saurfang, though we'll need a lot of improvement before he's going to fall.

Also, I went holy last tuesday, and our top paladin healer (who snipes all my heals, the *******) wasn't there. Which led to me thoroughly topping the meters every fight, until I went back to disc. Always nice to know I can still do it when it's needed.

I think that was our healing team, though I'm not 100% sure. We also had two switcharoo druids and a shaman - I know for fact that the shaman was DPSing that fight, but I'm not entirely sure what the druids were up to. We might've had an additional resto druid.

I agree. I've found that priest healing has ruined me for the other healing classes simply because we have so many options. The others do one thing or another better, but I'm used to being able to do everything and that's how I want it.

I find pally healing in particular to be very reactive, and I much prefer to stay organized and ahead of the damage. :)

To the point of the thread, I accomplished getting all four of my wisdom teeth pulled and being a cranky ***** all weekend. But in between the ********* I also finished up my Kalu'ak rep and picked up Pengu, thereby completing my 75th pet and getting the little fawn. (And yes, I farmed all those whelplings myself, buying them would be cheating.)

Shield spam is awesome, but you use PoH a lot often? PoM on CD is something I have to work on personally. As I leave it off CD too often and that is not good.

I find myself using PoH a decent amount. The problem is that during those really sickly hard encounters, where I really need to give it all, I've found that chain-casting PoH is the only thing that cuts it in terms of throughput. Shielding everyone takes too long, Flash Healing every player takes too long as well, Renew sucks too much and... PoH is simply the only thing keeping me in the game. Usually there is still *some* synergy left though, with me renewing ProM and using one or two Borrowed Time bonuses for my PoHs.

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To the point of the thread, I accomplished getting all four of my wisdom teeth pulled and being a cranky ***** all weekend.

All four of them over a weekend? O_O

I've had one pulled a couple of months ago, and I'm going to need to get two more pulled as well... I thought I had it bad O_o

Is that even possible? I mean, if they anaesthetize all four corners of your mouth, you can't breathe?

They just knock you out. I went in for my appointment, and there was an IV, and a guy saying some stuff, and then I was in the car asking to stop for a milkshake on the way home. Mmm... milkshakes. Too bad I can't even drink a milkshake right now without excruciating freaking pain. WAH!

Yup. I had my wisdom teeth out four summers ago, but it was the summer before my freshmen yeah and I was young. They wanted to do preemptive pulling and take them out before they had even really developed.

I just walked it, they gave me an IV, and then next thing I knew I was stumbling out of the place like I was drunk.

I still got to ***** and scarf milkshakes and stuff, but it wasn't as bad as if I had gotten them out as an adult.

I still got to ***** and scarf milkshakes and stuff, but it wasn't as bad as if I had gotten them out as an adult.

They gave me a long talk about how I should expect some downtime, because most people do this when they're nineteen and I can't expect to heal like they do "at my age." I'm all, first off, shut up with your talk of oldness, and secondly, do not disparage my healing ability.

Oh god, I hope they do the same to me. Dutch dentists seem to be cruel - when I got that one tooth pulled he just used some local anestethics. To be fair though, he did a **** quick and good job, and it barely bothered me afterwards.

Cleared the first wing of ICC10 heroic. Got the achievements for LDW and Valithria, as well. Done 6 Ulduar HM's, might continue that today. Killed Putricide25 heroic, guild first kill. Also did Blood Wing heroic and Sindragosa and LK normal. (Yay Kingslayer!) I actually think Sindragosa is harder than the Lich King, which is ironic. Killed Halion on 25man normal. I've also started building myself a Holy offset, but it seems the guild is more inclined to take me as Disc at the moment.

Not much of me to ditch considering that I'm not playing WoW at the moment.

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Theophany wrote:YOU'RE AN ELITIST @#%^ AETHIEN, NO WONDER YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS AND PEOPLE HATE YOU. someproteinguy wrote:Aethien you take more terrible pictures than a Japanese tourist. Astarin wrote:One day, Maz, you'll learn not to click on anything Aeth links.

Dno, for some people it would be a massive accomplishment, for me say.. a year ago it would have been too. For me now, it's rather meh. WoW just isn't any sort of fun anymore, the only reason I'm tempted to log in is to talk to Kali, Delinja, Maz and Rio. But that's not worth paying for, and I have no interest in raiding anymore as it only feels like grinding anyway.

That's what killed it for me anyway... progressing on a boss once is fun, twice is ****** up and four times is just utterly retarded and with how lame most hardmodes are plus the fact that you do 10 mans before 25 mans most of the times that's what you're doing. I've always hated grinding, and when even progression raiding feels more like grinding than anything else the fun is just gone.

I'll see how the Cata raiding system works out, but I fear that they'll keep the ****** up hits harder hardmodes that ruined raiding so I doubt I'll come back.

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Theophany wrote:YOU'RE AN ELITIST @#%^ AETHIEN, NO WONDER YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS AND PEOPLE HATE YOU. someproteinguy wrote:Aethien you take more terrible pictures than a Japanese tourist. Astarin wrote:One day, Maz, you'll learn not to click on anything Aeth links.

Yogg isn't any different on HM. He's the exact same, only a bit harder.

Also all of ToC, Thorim, Hodir, Gunship, Marrowgar, rotface and I can't really say for the rest because I haven't done them but I doubt that they drastically change.

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Theophany wrote:YOU'RE AN ELITIST @#%^ AETHIEN, NO WONDER YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS AND PEOPLE HATE YOU. someproteinguy wrote:Aethien you take more terrible pictures than a Japanese tourist. Astarin wrote:One day, Maz, you'll learn not to click on anything Aeth links.

Dno, for some people it would be a massive accomplishment, for me say.. a year ago it would have been too. For me now, it's rather meh. WoW just isn't any sort of fun anymore, the only reason I'm tempted to log in is to talk to Kali, Delinja, Maz and Rio. But that's not worth paying for, and I have no interest in raiding anymore as it only feels like grinding anyway.

That's what killed it for me anyway... progressing on a boss once is fun, twice is @#%^ed up and four times is just utterly retarded and with how lame most hardmodes are plus the fact that you do 10 mans before 25 mans most of the times that's what you're doing. I've always hated grinding, and when even progression raiding feels more like grinding than anything else the fun is just gone.

I'll see how the Cata raiding system works out, but I fear that they'll keep the @#%^ed up hits harder hardmodes that ruined raiding so I doubt I'll come back.

Yeah, I was just teasing you. I'm not playing a lot these days myself.

And as far as raiding goes, you're preaching to the choir, brother. When I think of WoW at its most fun, I think of the first year or so I was playing, leveling different classes, playing with my family, exploring the zones, reading the quest text! I'm in no way implying that it is or should be this way for everyone, but speaking only for myself, the hamster wheel ruined the fun for me. The rushing through leveling when Lich King came out, so I could rush through gearing up so I could keep up in the constant arms race of endgame play. No stopping. No rose-smelling. Late nights and scheduled play time. Yuck.

The only reason I still love this game - and despite the inevitable pre-expansion lull, I mostly do - is because I stopped that.

Having to kill the same bosses twice a week every week and having such distinctly different experiences with them is what killed/is killing it for me. That a boss can be mind-numbingly easy on 10 and have its relative difficulty increased exponentially, not because of any extra damage coming in or such, but simply because you have to put more bodies into the same area of space irritated the **** out of me.

10 felt more refined right from the start, to me. I don't know if it's just because I have a larger share of competent people in the 10s I've been in or what, but it was always cleaner, always tighter, always easier to find out what needed improvement. But you needed 25 gear to progress...

I've always wanted to see what a real, 25 man, ***************************** group was like, but I automatically preclude myself from being in one simply because I don't min/max to the point of completely regemming all of my gear just to get a 10 dps upgrade, or giving up the ludicrous sums of money from herbalism (and it's kinda fun to just fly around in circles mindlessly sometimes, something to do while watching a movie or such) just for a second "raiding profession".

My main gripe with 25-mans is that it's just 10-mans with 25 people. They're only harder "because Blizz says so" (as in, instead of increasing boss hp by X2.5, it's increased by X3), and I just don't like not being 'in control' of the whole raid. In 10-mans, if I'm the raid healer, then I'm the fvcking raid healer. In 25-mans, it means I throw some stuff down on some groups, but have no clue whether I'm actually doing good or anything as I have to rely on my 2-3 fellow raid-healers.

Also, your last paragraph is true. I've always wanted to see a real 25-man. The problem is that I'm beginning to feel more like a 'real 25-man' is similar to the ones we've been having. You still won't actually notice yourself heal.

I don't think every fight works better on 10man. I believe that largely depends on the fight. For most fights, there is a version that feels 'righter' and one that just doesn't feel as great, though.

It often is 10-man but there are a few fights I actually prefer on 25man for various reasons.

What this does is create more content for players to go through without costing the developers all too much time/effort. I honestly don't mind right now. I'm can approach 10mans with a "let's try some funny things on Sindragosa and not do Plague Wing at all this week" attitude and don't feel I have to clear the whole instance immediately because it's not really progression content. This makes it feel very much different from ICC25, at least for me.

it's not more content, it's more of the same content. Important difference.

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Theophany wrote:YOU'RE AN ELITIST @#%^ AETHIEN, NO WONDER YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS AND PEOPLE HATE YOU. someproteinguy wrote:Aethien you take more terrible pictures than a Japanese tourist. Astarin wrote:One day, Maz, you'll learn not to click on anything Aeth links.

Don't mistake me, making 10 and 25 man raids available for every instance was one of the best moves Blizzard has made in their history. But it seems like in a lot of cases they design the geometry and encounter around the 10 man and then just say "okay, now triple the incoming damage" or whatever without any consideration for spatial relationships. Obviously people do it, but it's just silly to me that an encounter is only harder because you put more bodies in a room and make it harder to move around.

The problem I have is that the tier-to-tier progression for 10 man only isn't consistent and demands a certain amount of 25 man level gear to progress comfortably, and the fact that separate loot tables demand that even if you run 25s on a regular basis for the "higher" gear, you STILL have to run 10s to get some unique BIS items that you can't get anywhere else.

But I also think that some fights work better on 25man than on 10man. Blood Princes and Sindragosa normal come to mind. I think they're trying too hard to make some stuff work for both when they should just change some mechanics more, or something. I don't know. I'm not exactly unhappy with most of what I've seen of encounter design in WotLK (apart from Naxx maybe), but I get your point.

I also recognize what you're saying, Kali; some fights seem pretty clearly made for 25-man raids and it's the 10-man version that gets 'the short end of the stick'. Sindragosa's a good example. Fights like Saurfang (and to a lesser extend Festergut) work exactly the other way around (25 people on a ******* tiny balcony? sod off!).

The thing is though, that with the way it works currently, I can't do 10-mans and feel good about myself in accomplishing something. Heck, I could be the best 10-man guild out there and people would still go "yeah, nice 'n all, but 25-mans are where it's at". I just don't like 25-mans!

I think my gripe is similar to Aeth's; Aeth doesn't want to be forced to do the same instance 2 or 4 times just to be 'raiding at top level'. I don't want that, AND I don't want to do 25-mans in the first place.

This is probably my biggest accomplishment of the whole gosh darned expansion.

Last night, at long last, my priest replaced her Titansteel Guardian. Jumpy claps!

I only replaced it with an ilevel 219 staff, but then that's hardly the point. This brings my total number of characters still wielding the Guardian down to: 3.

Now as soon as I get my Brimstone Igniter I'll actually get the Epic achievement on the poor girl.

This all came about because my husband picked up a Battered Hilt so we started the quest line and had to do some actual dungeons with the actual dungeon finder and actual other people (although the amount of it we could just 2-man was pretty surprising to me). I was worried the puggers would be mean to me for healing in PVP gear, but I guess nobody cares what you're wearing in regular mode dungeons. I suspect we overgeared it all anyway because it was crazy easy. Mr. Teacake did a great job for a brand new tank. Who knows, if I have a decent and reliable tank to run with, maybe I'll start enjoying 5 mans again.

It's funny how that tends to improve your outlook, though dps who try to tell you that urdoinitwrong when they're the ones standing in fire still make me want to come through their screen with a face and strangle them.

I got my first attempts at Halion this evening. I get the dispel away from the raid, poo on the floor, and meteors of fire with trails of flame, the rotating boss in two dimensions, raid wide damage ticks, flame breath and a bad ole tail. But gee wiz, rotating orbs with a connecting laser beam of instant death? I'm trying to heal here... No, we didn't get him down.

At least it hasn't got two cutters (hello revolving door!), adds that you have to kill in the right order and all that high movement in the physical realm.

I think Halion is a fun encounter and I hope we get enough ICC25 progression done tomorrow that we have the time to give him a few tries on heroic this week.

I also think that he's quite doable in normal mode (if communication is good, that is) and a proper challenge with some pretty awesome mechanics on heroic. I like that the fight is, despite the amount of different mechanics to watch out for, still very structured compared to some of the Ulduar and ICC encounters (thinking Putricide HM especially here, ugh).

If you have a raid leader with good awareness, have him call out when the shadow cutter appears so that you can focus on your healing more easily the rest of the time. This goes especially for normal mode because you do not have to move unnecessarily when the cutters aren't actually there.

Did some with a guild rogue after having rogue talk with him on my rogue. He asked why I went disco for BGs, I said PvP takes discaprine.

We destroyed that AB even though we lost as I was the only Ally healer.

Strangely, even though he has all bought PvE gear and no idea of what ICC fights are about, I want to take him to more raids even though he barely knows what is going on as he listens and never dies to stupid ****. Why can't dedicated raiders be that good?

I mean even if he had never been to Sindy, I would expect him to just realize when the boss pulls in and starts to do angry looking stuff to just run away.

I do have him just stay on LDW as I never like explain the mobs to him though. He was good on interrupts with out me saying anything.